R
rdarmand
I had never used the archiving ability of Outlook until a
few days ago. For years, I had been saving my messages in
the "Saved Mail" folder, using a complex tree structure.
Eventually, however, this tree became so unwieldy that I
asked someone here how to save these emails to Word. They
were kind enough to help me, telling me that Outlook
would not export to Word, and suggested that I archive
them instead.
I worked through the archival feature, and was very
pleased with the way it saved all the emails I had
carefully preserved for the last several years. I even
set up a regular schedule for my new emails to be
archived. Some of the old folders I had been saving
under "Saved Mail" were no longer necessary, so I deleted
them. Since the archival feature had reproduced them in
the archival folder, they were no longer needed.
Or so I thought.
After the archive schedule kicked in, I discovered to my
horror that, if I had deleted a folder under "Saved
Mail," it was deleted under "Archive Folders" as well,
along with everything inside. Now, precious emails that I
had spent years carefully preserving are gone forever.
This is one of the consequences of making the first line
of software support an inadequate on-line "Help" system,
and not providing hard copy manuals with software. Users
are not given a realistic opportunity to visit all sides
of a question; the on-line help system is simply too
unwieldy to use for this purpose. What happened to my
emails is counter-intuitive to anyone who isn't a
software engineer. Why should Outlook's archive system
delete folders from "Archived Folders" at any time,
without a specific command? The purpose of an archival
system is to enable you to get rid of folders as well as
files in your primary workspace when they are no longer
needed there.
It is too much to think that anyone at Microsoft gives a
damn what has happened to me. I want the people
responsible for this debacle to suffer as I have
suffered, and as I will suffer as a result of this lack
of foresight and blithe indifference to the consequences
thereof. In a just universe, they would. I can hope.
few days ago. For years, I had been saving my messages in
the "Saved Mail" folder, using a complex tree structure.
Eventually, however, this tree became so unwieldy that I
asked someone here how to save these emails to Word. They
were kind enough to help me, telling me that Outlook
would not export to Word, and suggested that I archive
them instead.
I worked through the archival feature, and was very
pleased with the way it saved all the emails I had
carefully preserved for the last several years. I even
set up a regular schedule for my new emails to be
archived. Some of the old folders I had been saving
under "Saved Mail" were no longer necessary, so I deleted
them. Since the archival feature had reproduced them in
the archival folder, they were no longer needed.
Or so I thought.
After the archive schedule kicked in, I discovered to my
horror that, if I had deleted a folder under "Saved
Mail," it was deleted under "Archive Folders" as well,
along with everything inside. Now, precious emails that I
had spent years carefully preserving are gone forever.
This is one of the consequences of making the first line
of software support an inadequate on-line "Help" system,
and not providing hard copy manuals with software. Users
are not given a realistic opportunity to visit all sides
of a question; the on-line help system is simply too
unwieldy to use for this purpose. What happened to my
emails is counter-intuitive to anyone who isn't a
software engineer. Why should Outlook's archive system
delete folders from "Archived Folders" at any time,
without a specific command? The purpose of an archival
system is to enable you to get rid of folders as well as
files in your primary workspace when they are no longer
needed there.
It is too much to think that anyone at Microsoft gives a
damn what has happened to me. I want the people
responsible for this debacle to suffer as I have
suffered, and as I will suffer as a result of this lack
of foresight and blithe indifference to the consequences
thereof. In a just universe, they would. I can hope.